EU lawmakers on Tuesday said they were "appalled" by Robert Abela's statement downplaying the driving test scandal as they backed a resolution on the state of rule of law in Malta.
It was approved by 437 to 14, with 66 abstentions.
Of the Maltese MEPs, the PN's David Casa voted for the motion, Labour's Alex Agius Saliba and Josianne Cutajar voted against while their colleagues Alfred Sant and Cyrus Engerer were not present for the vote.
The wide-ranging resolution paid tribute to Daphne Caruana Galizia on the sixth anniversary of her murder and said the rule of law remained threatened by a "culture of impunity".
It also called for the government to "finally enshrine the right to safe and legal abortion", after a law was passed in June that allowed terminations but only when the mother's life is at risk.
MEPs called for thorough, swift and independent investigations and prosecutions of all public officials allegedly embroiled in corruption, extortion and trading in influence - including in the driving licence racket.
The prime minister had dismissed as "the way the political system works", revelations by Times of Malta that ministers and public officials helped to get favourable treatment for certain people sitting their driving test.
Parliament highlighted the "limited progress" in judicial proceedings for Caruana Galizia’s murder, and in prosecuting the crimes she had investigated.
David Casa, who led the resolution, said in a debate on Wednesday that journalists had exposed "disgusting" issues.
“Six years after Daphne was killed, there isn’t a single criminal conviction for any of the corruption she exposed,” he said. “It has to be a car bomb that orphaned three boys to shock the system of impunity.”
The Nationalist politician said Malta had been left with "a Prime Minister who has failed to act to root out corruption and now openly admitted his failure when he said that corruption is the way things work in Malta".
But Labour's Alex Agius Saliba said the EP had “ended up in Disneyland” thanks to the EPP hijacking the parliament’s agenda.
The resolution was aimed at delivering “half-truths” about Malta, he said.
"It confirms to me that the EPP's mission is not to protect the press, but attack the left-wing government of Malta," he said.
He said the EPP was lying when it said there was no impetus to prosecute people, no drive to fix rule of law reforms, or no progress on media law.
Agius Saliba was then cut off and received a mild rebuke for exceeding his speaking time by 40 seconds “which is quite a lot for most of us”.
Labour MEP Cyrus Engerer took a different angle, attacking the mudslinging between “the two political tribes who have done away with critical thinking.”
Sophia In t’Veld from the Renew Group said not all recommendations from the Daphne public inquiry had been implemented. Journalists were “still working in a hostile environment”, she said, and noted that SLAPPs filed against Caruana Galizia had still not been lifted, six years after her murder.
Greens MEP Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield said that “justice is slow to act” in Malta and a culture of impunity “seems to still be present on the island”.
“Sometimes it feels like democracy is suffocating in Malta,” she said as she rattled off a list of problems in the country.
But she also noted a seeming double standard at play in the European Parliament, asking “Is this parliament only concerned about rule of law issues when they come from countries that are not governed by EPP?”
Looking beyond Malta, MEPs condemned any criminalisation of and attacks on journalists for doing their job.
They recalled in particular the killings of Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová in Slovakia, of Viktoria Marinova in Bulgaria, of Giorgos Karaivaz in Greece and of Peter R. de Vries in The Netherlands.